Couchsurfing Montserrat

3/14 - 3/17

Didac replied to our last-minute couch request and gave us a place to stay before the start of the Valencia Fallas. Didac's a really nice guy, a teacher who loves his work. We realised how lucky he is to have work at all when we heard that unemployment in Spain had topped 50% for people aged 16-24. Terrassa is just 20 kilometres from Barcelona but we didn't really spend much time in the town itself; Montserrat and climbing were our goals. Thanks to the Oatmeal for helping me check that that semicolon wasn't misplaced.

After Didac went to work we tried to figure out how to get to Montserrat. To our surprise it looked considerably more difficult to get there from Terrassa than from Barcelona, but we picked the most likely named stop on a local train line and started walking. The rather misleadingly-named 'Castellbell i el Vilar Monistrol de Montserrat' stop turned out to be a 2-hour hike away from the 'Monistrol de Montserrat' rack railway station we needed to get up the mountain. The look on the tourist information desk's staff's face when we told her how we got to Montserrat was priceless. Thankfully there was an easier way back, the two train lines converging further down the track.

We got here pretty late so the sun was already behind those mountains. Montserrat reminded us of Meteora, but much higher up and not as cool.

The 'Black Maria' in the basilica is apparently a big draw for the religious crowd.

Very windy out there!

The next day Didac took me climbing while Hozumi did her sloth impression at his house. We hiked to the rock face along crumbling stone walls stacked by hand in some previous century. A couple of other climbers and a big friendly dog were there before us. Didac hadn't been climbing in ages and I'm just not very good so it was a challenge for both of us.

Just one lead climb for me.

Nice views.